


There was a Boy

by Mairzy



Category: Le Petit Prince | The Little Prince (2015)
Genre: Emotional Healing, Fluff and Angst, Gen, was-not-a-dream au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 16:57:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8541277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mairzy/pseuds/Mairzy
Summary: A sort of sequel to The Little Prince, the animated movie.  The Girl and the Prince meet again on earth, but both are changed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of a feelsy piece for me. I absolutely loved the dynamic with the Girl and the Prince and I needed more. Not much happens here, action wise. This is a fic about talking, and healing.
> 
> The movie was really great and I loved the characters! It's just that it left me a little dissatisfied. Both the Girl's and the Prince's major conflicts seemed to be solved all of a sudden, almost like by dues ex machina. I want to explore the ideas that your mother doesn't stop being a manic control freak just because your neighbor died, and that psychological scars don't just go in a second away because your flower girlfriend came back as a magical ghost. This also, admittedly, explores some of my own weird headcanons about what kind of creature the Prince might become after the events of the movie, and also even ventures to give the Girl a first and last name (I know...)
> 
> Takes place in an AU where the last third of the movie actually happened in the Girl's reality...somehow. As for triggers, I'm not sure. There is trauma mentioned, but it's only talked about, not shown. Ah, possession, but it's voluntary. And self-loathing, I guess.

She has wandered away from the path to take some photos of trees.  She likes to set her camera in the crook of a branch and aim it upward, getting a glare from the sun.  Said glare tries to cut through the pink and white blooms in her pictures.  She actually sticks her head into the tree, upsetting it, and causing petals to fall on her black hair.

A sudden cacophony of bird calls demands her attention- squeaking and squawking and complaining.  They sound like they’re in the midst of an argument.  Strange, what would upset birds so much here, in the park?  No one else is nearby, so she takes it upon herself to investigate.  Still holding her camera, moves further away from the path.

A large, stately tree on a hill comes into view and she knows this is the right place.  It is simply covered in birds, to the point where it looks like the tree grows birds instead of leaves.  They are larger then sparrows, but smaller than ducks, and all of them are yelling all at once.  

“Well there’s no need to be upset!  I’m certain we can visit one first, and then the other.  We just need to come to an accord!”

A gangly redheaded kid is under the tree, looking up and speaking to the birds.  'Kid’ meaning that he’s her own age of seventeen, or maybe a couple of years younger.  It’s hard to tell exactly really- people grow different parts of themselves at different rates.  The Girl herself is only a meter and a half tall, but holds out hope that she’ll acquire another centimeter, or two, before she’s in college.  But this younger boy is already a head taller than her.

He looks toward one side of a tree, “I do rather like nice views, but what of sunsets?” Then to the other side of the tree, “Pleasant sunsets, you say.  Alright, what about flowers?” Then his head whips around, “Too hot for the summer?  Oh, but the heat never bothered me.”

The closer The Girl steps, the stranger the birds appear to be.  They have the buoyant shape and the hooked beaks of seabirds, but their plumage is wild, with shades of black and blue and brilliant indigo, like the deepest, starriest nights.  They are very similar to- _hmm_.  But that was so long ago, and she’s probably not remembering correctly.

The boy sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose, “I’m sorry it has to come to this, but we’ll have to take a tally.  It’s the only fair way.  So, all in favor of the Himalayas, please speak now!”

All the birds scream at once, and The Girl jumps.  They are so much louder now that she’s come closer!  They caw and squeak at the boy with fully opened beaks.  Some of them flap their wings, very impassioned.

“No, no, no,” the boy shakes his head, “those in favor of the Amazon should speak later.  It’s not your turn yet!”

In response to this, half of the birds scream louder.  The Girl notices that these birds all seem to be saying _awk-awk-awk!_  In response, the other half of the birds speak up to match those raised voices.  These birds seem to be saying _yeet-yeet-yeet!_

The boy’s hands drop this his side, defeated.  The young, skinny man clad in green dropping his hands to his side seems familiar to The Girl, if for only a second.  She wonders if she’s seen his particular ensemble- a green hoodie with a yellow hood, paired with green baggy shorts, before.  The boy looks up through his ruby hair, then leans back on his frame, crossing his arms.  "How am I supposed to count you if you all speak at once?“

The birds continue to yell at him- _awk-awk-awk!_ and _yeet-yeet-yeet!_

He sighs, "Well, if you’re all going to yell at once, someone else will have to count.  Any volunteers?”  He adds, a bit bashful, “Numbers are not easy for me.”

The birds continue to argue, _awk-awk-awk_ and _yeet-yeet-yeet._  

“Hello?  Can you hear me over your selves?” He sounds quite small and defeated.  The Girl steps forward, and slips her head into the strap on the camera.  It dangles by her torso.  

Numbers may not be easy for the boy but for The Girl they’re like second nature.  She’s already been counting as she watched the scene- counting the black birds verses the purple birds, and dividing the difference by the number of blue birds.  It is simply how her mind works- numbers and figures are always speaking to her in the corner of her mind.  It’s her  greatest asset, and a curse, too.

But she changes tack, and focuses on what the birds are saying rather than what they look like.  She’s already determined that there are three hundred and six dark seabirds in total.  She walks around the tree, tapping her fingers with her other hand, and mumbling low to herself.  Every finger represents a binary number, one, then two, then four then eight and sixteen.  As she walks, she notices the strings hanging from the feet of some of the birds, and some of them have them wrapped tightly around their legs.  It’s just like- but she quashes the memory so it won’t distract her.

She walks all the way around the tree until she passes the boy.

“Well if you can’t decide, I’ll have to decide for you, won’t I?” He starts to count on his fingers, in a similar fashion to how The Girl is doing it, but with only two.  "Eeeny, meeny, miney, oh, hello?“  He has noticed The Girl.

"One hundred fifty three,” she says.

“One hundred fifty three?”

She shakes her head, trying to quiet the digits which are now yelling inside her head louder than the birds.  She says, “One hundred fifty three birds in favor of _awk_ , and one hundred fifty three birds in favor of _yeet_.”

The boy laughs.

“What?”

“It’s not _awk_!  It’s _awhk_!”

“That’s what I said.   _Awk_.”

“No, _awhk_!  You have to get the accent right, otherwise it changes the entire meaning!  You just said ‘go to foot’ which doesn’t make any sense!”

The Girl purses her lips, “Listen, I don’t speak bird.  I’m just trying to help you.  And,” she sighs, “I’m sorry, but your birds are completely undecided.”

The boy’s yellow eyebrows shoot up, and he nods, staring into the girl’s eyes.  How strange- blond eyebrows with red hair.  Come to think of it- wait, that’s not hair.

“You have rose petals for hair!”

His eyes roll upward, as he was just told this for the first time.  "Yes,“ he says, "and you have flower petals in your hair. It looks very nice, but you didn't have them the last time i saw you.”

The last time he saw her? She combs her fingers through her hair bashfully, but says, "So I know you?"

"I hope so! But I'm so easily forgotten by Grown Ups," he looks down, then asks, shyly, “How is the fox plush?  He was such a brave and loyal friend.”

The fox plush?  There aren’t many people who would consider her toy fox a friend, and one of them is gone.  So that leaves-

“Little Prince?” This boy isn’t so little, is he?  But one can’t deny the similarities in the face- that long, serious nose, the distant blue eyes.  "I mean, Mr. Prince?  I mean, wait-

"You've remembered me! You can call me Petals, now.”

“Oh.  Oh, Prince!” She runs into a hug with him, which causes him to jump, but he recovers and puts his arms around hers.  It makes so much sense now!  The birds, and the strings.  The Girl has only seen that species of bird when she wasn’t on Earth.  Spacegulls, she termed them.

“It’s Petals.”

“Huh?  But why?”

He shrugs, brakes eye contact, “Reasons.”

She screws up her face, but not for long.  No matter what he wants to call himself, she’s so glad to see her friend again!  She thought she never would.  "Oh Petals!  What are you doing here?“

"Trying to decide whether to visit the Himalayas or the Amazon next.”

“But what are you doing on Earth?  What about asteroid B-612?”

Petals shrugs, and he pulls away.  More distance seems to have entered his eyes.

“Did something go wrong?” The Girl asks softly, “Why are you are a grown up?”

“I’m not a grown up!” Petals looks insulted by the suggestion.

“But, you’re not a exactly child,” she points out.

“Neither are you,” Petals points out, “you’re quite tall.”

The Girl snorts.  No one calls her 'tall’.  It’s kind of a nice compliment, even if it does come from someone taller. “I’m also a mortal,” she reminds him, “and I’m seventeen now.  But you’re not a mortal.  You’re a- a something else.  You’re not _supposed_ to get older.”

He grabs one of his hoodie drawstrings and rolls it between his finger and thumb, “You’re not me, so you shouldn’t be telling me what I’m _supposed_ to do.  Anyway, the only important thing is that I haven’t forgotten.  In fact, I remembered you before you remembered me!” It's almost a gloat.

He actually makes a good point, “How was I supposed to recognize you, though?  I left a blond child on that planet.  Not a teenager with flowers for hair.” She reaches out to touch it, but Petals grabs her wrist.  His has a surprising strong grip.

“Please don’t.”

The Girl slides her hand back to her side, embarrassed.

The Prince turns his head back and forth, slowly, letting the wind ruffle his petals, “Do you like them?”

Well, The Girl has to admit that they look rather nice.  "I do.  They remind me of your Rose.“

"Good!  Because she’s here.”

“Here?  Here on Earth?” The Girl isn’t sure how that’s possible, though it probably isn’t  _im_ possible.  His Rose is gone.  But, she’s also, not gone.  Just like her neighbor the Aviator is gone, but not gone, and just like the Prince himself was once gone.

“Yes, but that’s not what I mean.  She’s with me.”

”What?  But how?”

Screaming from the trees.   _Awk-awk-awks_ and _yeet-yeet-yeets_.  The spacegulls demand to be noticed and validated.  Petals sighs, “Isn’t that enough?  Since you birds can’t decide, I’m afraid we’ll have to put this whole engagement off,” he smiles at The Girl, “besides, I’ve changed my plans.  I now want to catch up with old friends.”

The spacegulls fly out of the tree in a whirlwind of feathers, momentarily making the blue sky look like a starry vista.  "Wow,“ The Girl breathes.  Then they’re gone.

“Reyna?  Reyna!  Is that you?  Are you there?  Did you just see all those birds?”

The Girl looks up at the call, and Petals says, “I wonder who they’re looking for.”

“That’s my Mom, you goober,” The Girl laughs, “and she’s looking for me.  That’s my name, remember?”

“No?”  He bites his lip, “I guess I _did_ forget something.”

Petals looks so upset, so lost at the notion of having forgotten something that it causes The Girl to search her own memory.  It was so long ago, though, when she actually met The Prince, and so many details are hazy.  

“Actually, I think I might not have gotten around to introducing myself to you.  Properly.”

“Really?”

“Really,” she laughs nervously, “I already knew who you were- who I was didn’t seem all that important.”

His eyes widen, and he looks very serious.  "It was very important!  You were the person who knew who I was.“

The name is called again, closer this time.  Petals says it a few times, as if committing it to memory, “Reyna, Reyna…”.  How embarrassing, but Reyna supposes she has to commit now.  She says, "I need to go to her.  Would you like to meet her, though?”

“Can I?”

“Of course!  But uh,” she realizes, “I can’t tell her you’re you.”

“Why not?”  Petals narrows his eyes.

“Because my Mom doesn’t think you’re real.”

“Why not?”

“She thinks you’re fictional.  A character in a book our friend made up.”

“She thinks I’m a pretty lie?”  Petals looks very hurt by this realization.

“Erm, yes?”

“And so now I _have_ to lie, so that she’ll think I’m the truth?”

“Um, yeah?”  She makes a face.

The Prince sighs, “Grown-ups are still very, very odd,” he shoves his hands into his hoodie pockets.

* * *

She calls for Reyna again, on the edge of panic.  This is a public park, and safe- or so she thought.  But it is in a city she doesn’t visit often, and her daughter- she’s not answering.

Until this last time, “I’m here, Mom!”

The Mother lets out a sigh of relief.

Reyna walks down a slope toward her, her grown-but-not-quite-grown daughter.  Her cheeks are rosy, her brown eyes are gentle, and her black hair is tied up in a ponytail behind her.  She’s wearing the new blue dress she got her.  

“Where did you go, anyway?” 

“Just taking pictures of trees,” Reyna says.

“Oh.  Right,” The Mother’s hands clasp her sleeve, “did you get any good ones?”

“I don’t know,” Reyna flips out the screen, “I haven’t looked at them yet.  I- was talking to a friend,” she gestures to a boy also descending the hill.  The hood of his green and yellow hoodie is up over his head and he looks at The Mother with steady, unblinking eyes.  It’s almost a stare.  

“Friend,” The Mother says cautiously.

“From the internet,” Reyna nods, “he just uh, happened to be the area.  His name is Peter,” Peter seems to look at her with confusion, “Peter Prince.”

The boy opens his mouth, and The Mother extends her hand, “Oh, Mr. Prince, nice to meet you.”

The boy looks hurt and takes a step back, “What?”  Even Reyna seems to flinch.

“Mom!”  She takes her by the shoulder, gently, “Why not just call him Peter?  He’s a kid, yeesh.”

“Of course.  Peter,” these kids are acting awful strangely, she thinks, but she still has the hand offered, “I’m glad my daughter is making friends.”

Peter finally shakes her hand, “Me, too.”


	2. Chapter 2

It’s certainly not his first time in a car, though he notes how strange it feels.  To be in a car, but also free.  The vehicle passes very tall gray stone buildings, and Petals lets his forehead lean against the glass window.  The more of this city he sees, the less free he feels.  Maybe coming with the women was a bad idea.

His worried thoughts are loud, and the other person inhabiting his body takes note of them.  Usually he can hide thoughts from her, but she speaks.

_But won’t you look over there, My Prince?  Flowering vines are springing up in a box under that window.  And look over there, at that woman, how vibrant and multicolored her dress is!  And there, in the square, see the small white dog playing with the child?_

Petals breathes, and nods.  She’s right-absolutely right.  This planet city is similar at a glance, but not all the same as the Planet of the Grown Ups.  So glad he is that she’s here to remind him of these things when everything spirals and all looks shades of black and white.

And she- well, She is his flower, of course!  The solitary Rose that once grew on his planet.  Now her fragile shell is gone, crumbled away, and she lives, clinging to him.  She lives in his heart- quite literally.  She is his constant companion; a voice in his mind, his co-pilot through life.

“Thank you,” he says.

“Oh, don’t mention it!  Every kid deserves to see the zoo before they grow up.  I can’t believe you’ve never been!”

He blinks.  Oh, right, Reyna and her mother.  He opens his mouth, considers correcting the older woman, and letting her know the two words were not meant for her.  

He realizes that he hasn't yet told Reyna exactly how his Rose is present, but he’s not sure he wants to explain the situation now.  He recalls his conversation with her about telling lies in order to seem like the truth.  This older woman seems like the worst kind of grown-up- the kind who simply can’t be spoken to about important things like flowers or possession without going red in the face.

How exhausting it must be for Reyna to live with her.  To talk all the time, without ever speaking the truth.

***

They arrive at the Zoo, but linger just outside the gates.

“We should wait for him.”

“He shouldn’t be long.”

“Who are you waiting for?” Petals asks, realizing he’s not sure who said what.

“He’ll be here soon,” Reyna says, which isn’t exactly an answer, “but it will be boring wait, regardless.  Do you want to go in?  It’s student day, so you can go get a hand stamp.”

“I’m not sure, what’s the purpose of the Zoo?”

Reyna’s mother gives him a withering look that makes him flinch a little, but Reyna says, “There are animals in there.  Animals from every corner of the globe.”

“Huh?” Petals says, for he's quite sure globes are round, and don’t have corners.

“From every part of the world.  You can see all kinds of things in there.  Elephants.  Tigers.”

 _“I am not at all afraid of tigers,”_ the Rose says, through Petals.

“Me neither,” Reyna says, “they have never been a significant worry in my life.”

Petals twists his drawstrings between his fingers, “Do you suppose I might find boa constrictors in the Zoo?”

It’s as if someone turned on a light bulb in Reyna’s face, her smile is that luminous.  She darts over to the a wooden display planted in the middle of the sidewalk and picks up a colorful trifold.  She unfurls it, revealing a map, but with many cheery drawings of animals and buildings and people.  It’s not to scale for certain, but it’s more cheerful than any accurate bus map Petals has seen.  

“This is the reptile house,” she says, pointing to a building with a pitched roof, “if there are any boa constrictors, you can find them there.”

“How kind, for someone to build a house for the reptiles.  Thank you, Reyna.  May I hold onto this map?”

“They’re free, dude,” she sighs, “see you in a bit!”

Reyna sits with her mother at a bench and they press their heads together in hushed conversation.  Petals does not care much for hushed, heavy conversations, so he heads toward the gates.  

The woman at the desk asks him to present the back of his hand, and presses a cool, rubbery stamp to it.  It leaves behind the impression of a giraffe.  He walks on past him, and the grown up behind him is forced to pay money out of their pocket.  Petals is glad that this world knows enough to reward those who aren’t grown ups, even if they aren’t quite children either.

What was the word Reyna had used?  Oh, right, ‘teenager’.

He opens his map.

He sees quite a few animals on the way to the reptile house, most of which in pits, with rocks or tree branches or other things, and walls between himself and the creatures.  He tries to call out to the nice looking ones, but they ignore him.  Then he tries to call to the dangerous looking ones, but they don’t heed his calls.  They don’t even look up.  It’s as if they’re uninterested, or they’ve tuned the sound of friendly boys out.

He only talks to the peacocks, who strut about the paths with the people, but their conversations go something like this:

“I’m the most handsomest bird in the Zoo.”

“Indeed sir, I will not argue with you.”

“You are not a peahen.  Do you have food?”

“No sir, I don’t carry any food with me.”

“If you don’t have food, you don’t interest me.”

“Let us chat, peacock.”

“You are not a peahen.  You do not have food.  You don’t interest me.”

It’s one of the longer conversations he manages to have.

The animals that Petals sees next are smaller, and the walls between him and them loop around them, encompassing them.  He’s passes a sign reading “Now entering North America” with a pine tree next to the words.  One of the walled areas has little bridges and leaning logs inside.  Petals approaches it, because he’s noticed a smart creature sleeping on a wooden platform.

“You must be a very old fox!” Petals says, for the fox is fat, and has lost all the red in his coat.  It's gray but for on it’s chest and underbelly.

The fox lifts his muzzle, “Do you have food?”

The Prince’s shoulders sag, “Any creature here who talks to me is only concerned with food,” he thinks for a moment, “at least you didn’t ask me if I was a peahen.”

“I can see you’re not a peahen.  I see that you’re just foolish boy.”

Petals puts his hands on the wooden hand rest in front of the wire mesh, “Will you play with me, Old Fox?”

“I don’t play.  I am too old.  I am too tamed.”

Petals blinks, “That’s not right.  That’s the opposite of what it means to be tamed.”

“Then it’s a word with two meanings.  I am, indeed, tamed.”

“How is that you’re tamed?”

“I’m tamed because I have been in this cage long enough.  I cannot leave it, for I don’t belong in any other place.”

Petals takes a step back, “Cage?”  He looks up at the wire mesh enclosure, “I thought this was your home.”

“It is.  The two things can become fused into one.  If you linger in a cage too long, it becomes your home.  If you stay at home too long, it becomes a cage." 

Petals looks at the ground.  The fox’s words ring a certain familiarity to his own experiences.  

"I should free you from this cage.”

“You cannot.”

“I can.  I only need a the right key.  I am free, and I can be sneaky.  I can get the key and let you out.”

“Oh, but you foolish boy, I will carry this cage everywhere I go.”

Petals bites his lip, “What do you mean?”

“It is a cage of fear.  I would be too afraid in the wild places.  Too afraid of the trails I once trod, too afraid to climb, to hunt.  I would be looking over my back, convinced always that men would come to trap me and take my self away from me.  I may never call myself a fox again, if I leave this place.”

“Oh,” Petals says, and threads his fingers through the wire mesh, “would you say, then, that if a Prince were in cage so long it became his home, that he may never call himself a Prince again?”

“I would say it’s a given.”

***

“Do you suppose the Old Fox is right?

The boy and the Rose walking still through the Zoo, using one set of legs.  Petals has his map unfurled in front of them.  They need to pass through the rest of North America and then all of The Savanna before they can reach the reptile house.  They have not released the Old Fox, because he begged them not to.

 _He’s wrong about one thing_ , the Rose says, _you may still call yourself Prince._

“That’s not how I feel.”

_Then think about my feelings.  To me, you are the only Prince of the Stars.  Nothing has changed that._

Petals sighs, pained, “That is not what I meant, anyway.  I wanted to know if you think he’s right about the word ‘tamed’ having two meanings.”

She is silent for a moment, but he can feel her presence thinking.  Finally she says, _Well, other words have two meanings._

“Oh?”

_Why yes.  For instance, you can say that I’m a rose, but you can also say that the sun rose._

“But, you are a Sun-Rose!”

He’s happy to say it.  As a child he could never could quite grasp wordplay; when he was a grown up it was non-existent, but as a petal-headed youth it is a shiny, promising new toy.  But when he looks up, there are eyes on him.  Several groups of people who stare at the boy who’s talking to himself.

Right.  Because the Rose’s voice goes unheard to the others.  Petals finds himself shrinking within his frame.  He hates to be noticed for the wrong reasons.  He almost hates to be noticed at all.

 _Oh!  Oh, yes!_  The Rose laughs, _So I am!_

The boy lifts his map higher to cover his face, and he’s glad his hood is up.  He wouldn’t want these people try to touch his petals like Reyna.  He will be far happier when he’s in the mountains, or the jungle, where people aren’t.  It truly is the loneliest around them.  

He walks until he can no longer see the people that were staring at him.  He stays silent as he does so, and now there are no stares.  

He pauses, folding his map.  He leans his arms on a banister, as others are doing.  He’s looking out over a place with grass and water.  In the water there’s a creature like a camel, but with a dark coat, and branches on its head.  

 _This place is a cage,_ the Rose observes, _it’s prettier than the cage the Old Fox was in, but it’s still a cage._

Petals knows she’s right.  He’s known all along, in a way.  These creatures who don’t talk to them, they’re all caged.  

“I cannot see the other edges of the cage,” Petals says.

_No._

“I wonder if that funny creature knows he’s in a cage.”

_We can try asking him, but he might not answer._

“Yes, that make sense.  With everything else, I forgot the languages of the plants and animals, while I was in my cage,” he stares at the strange camel.  It’s chewing on some pond reed, “the Old Fox is lucky his cage is so small.”

_How is that a lucky thing?_

“You can be in a very big cage, a cage so large you don’t realize it’s a cage.  But it still presses you from every side, as if it is tiny as a bottle.  This kind is the worst.  How do you leave a cage, when you don’t even realize you’re trapped?”

_You have left your cage, My Prince._

“Have I really?”

_You speak all the languages of the animals and the flowers.  Isn’t that enough proof for you?_

“But what about the cage of fear?” he opens his hands in front him, “I am still too afraid to be a child, so here I am, this in-between thing.”

_No matter what you look like, you’re perfect._

“We both know that’s not true.  Reyna doesn’t think so.  The Aviator didn’t think so.”

 _He was surprised.  They were both only surprised._  

“You mean disappointed, but gentle about it.”

_They both love you.  I love you too.  You can’t disappoint us by being you._

“Then why did my Aviator leave?”

_We asked him to.  Remember?_

Oh, that’s right.   

He leaves the exhibit, because he’s being stared at again.  It’s almost enough to make a person angry.  Can’t he talk to the person who matters the most without all these judgmental eyes?  Just because she shares a shell with him, she must be subject to scrutiny.

It’s not her fault she doesn’t have a body of her own.

He thinks the conversation is over, but the Rose says, _One thing is certain: a home can become a cage, full of horrors._

Petals stops in his tracks.  She’s talking about their planet.  She’s talking about the baobabs.

“I’m sorry I allowed you to die.”

The Rose is silent.

Speaking of baobabs, they both pause as they pass another sign, this one reading: “Now Entering the Savanna.”  They stare with one set of eyes at the design next to the words.

 _This bodes ill_ , the Rose says.

Petals bites his lip.  “Uh, well, you know, not necessarily,” he clears his throat, “when The Aviator first drew baobabs, they looked like cabbages.  Perhaps whoever drew on this sign meant to draw a cabbage?”

 _That makes sense_ , the Rose says, but she’s shaky.  

“Do you want to go back?”

_I have no fear of cabbages.  Press on._

Petals hesitates, _Press on!_  Suddenly his foot swings out, surprising him, _Or I will!_

“Alright, alright!”  Petals takes back control of his foot.  And press on they do, cautiously, passing enclosures with lions and elephants in them.  Petals tries to get the elephants’ attention, but even with their enormous ears, they can’t hear him.  

They turn a corner and Petals freezes.  It’s not a drawing this time.  

“A baobab,” he says very softly.

 _A hateful bully_ , the Rose says.

Said baobab in the center of a circle made by the path.  There are different small buildings around the outside of the circle, with people lining up at their windows.  Vines with triangular leaves linger on the roofs of these buildings.  The boy and the flower don’t take notice that the baobab is hollow, and made of stone and plaster instead of wood, and has a sign that reads GIFT SHOP, and has people moving about inside it.

Heat fills the Prince.  Fills his every part- his chest and his fingers and his nose and ears and his skin and his bones every one of his petals.  As if he has the sun inside of him.  The fragrance of a rose is in his nostrils, filling his every pore.  

Other notice the scent too- those people walking slowly around the tree circle.  They lift their noses and their faces up and breath in deeply.  It’s a universally beloved scent, that of roses.  But this- not so much.  They cough.  There is some sour edge to the pleasant scent.  

Fear.

Only Petals’ lungs are unbothered by the edge.  He is, after all, very familiar with fear, living in a cage of it.  He breathes deeply several times.  The boy stands perfectly still as the circle of buildings and roads is colored red.  As if painted, or as if being shined upon intensely with all the concentrated light an angry sun.  

Petals’ mouth twitches.  The Rose wants to make the baobab disappear, to unroot from the ground and all of reality.  But she can’t find the roots.  So she turns to others for assistance instead.  

The vines on the roofs lift their ends sleepily, then they strike.  They leap over the path and coil around the bark of the baobab.  They grow bigger, and strangle its bark and plaster branches.  They dig into the side and cause it to split and crack.  The tree moans, and the people inside run out to look up at it.  They run away just before it collapses into a pile of rubble in front of them.

The red light intensifies, blinding all eyes for a second.  But in a flash, it’s gone.  The false baobab is in debris on the ground, with vines twisted over them.  They look proud, sporting new, bright red flowers that look to the sun- flowers they never had before.  

People are shouting and asking questions.  Is anyone hurt?  What just happened?  What that a ghost?  No one pays any attention to the boy standing completely still on one of the branching paths; the boy who now smells like roses.


	3. Chapter 3

_You must understand…I had to do it!  I had to do it!_

“I know.”

_It had to be done.  It simply had to be done._

“I know, I know.” Petals is rushing through the zoo, back the way he came.  He face is down so he can hide in the hood, and he stares at the ground.  He barely dodges to get out of anyone’s way; just plows ahead.

“You did good,” Petals says.

_Yes, I did.  I did, right?  Did I?_

The Rose is so unsure, pleading for affirmation.  Petals doesn’t know the answer, though.  People are moving past him, and all around him, he hears whispers of ‘attack’ ‘strange new weapon’ ‘terrorists?’.  These words, tinged with fear and suspicion, push him onward.

_I’m not monstrous am I?  No one would dare say so!  Right?_

“No, you did right…you did right,” Petals assures in a whisper.

All he knows is that he’s very tired.  It’s always so tiring when the Rose uses her magic power.  Like his bones are hollowed out, and replaced with sloshing, heavy lead.  

Finally, after a bit of dodging and mumbling quiet apologies, and also a bit of sheer determination, he presses on through the gate.  Reyna and her mother still there, waiting on the bench.

Reyna gets off the bench as he steps onto the sidewalk, “Pet-Peter!  Done already?”  She puts her hands behind her back, “Did you see the boa constrictor?”

“What?  No,” Petals shakes his head, as if getting cobwebs to fall from his eyes.  Reyna’s mother sits on the bench still, fingers curled around the opening of her purse, eyes narrowed and mouth in a small frown.

“Oh.  Was it there?”  Reyna’s face sort of pinches, worried, “Peter, is something wrong?  People are saying things about some kind of biological attack.  It’s probably all hogwash, but did you see anything that would make people say so?”

He sighs.  He is just too exhausted to explain things.  Instead, he takes a seat on the bench.  He sees Reyna’s mother tightening her grip on her purse, but says nothing.  

A black car pulls up next to the sidewalk.  Reyna’s Mother puffs her chest and looks at it.  Reyna’s shoulders come up, and she makes a tight circle to face the vehicle.

A man in a nice suit opens the backdoor from the inside and steps out.  He’s holding a brown paper wrapped package, “Reyna Ness?”

She nods.  He hands her the package.

“Uh, OK.  But is Mr. Ness coming?”

“Sorry, I’m just the delivery man.”

“That is a strange outfit for a delivery man,” Petals observes, but he’s ignored by the humans present.  He doesn’t mind though- a lot of times being ignored is preferable to being noticed.

The Delivery Man steps back into the vehicle, which drives off.  Reyna’s Mother presses her lips together, and Reyna meets her eyes, “Maybe it’s um, his dietary guide for the week,” the girl says.

Her Mother sighs, which ends with a pitying smile, “Do you want to go to the zoo with your friend?”

Reyna presses her lips together, “Peter, want to go back into the zoo?”

“I do not,” Petals says, and leans into the back of the bench.

That decides it for Reyna.  She takes a seat between him and her Mother.  She unwraps the package.  There is book, and note on top.  She reads the note, then sighs.  Her Mother is leaning over her, peeking at the note.  Reyna glares at her.  Then she glares at Petals, and the boy realizes he, too, had been peeking at it.

He settles back.  

“An investor’s meeting,” Reyna crumples the paper, “in China,” she throws it at a trashcan, misses.  It rolls onto the sidewalk and comes to a halt.  Petals stares it, wondering if he should pick it up.

The book underneath the paper is bound with rings, and has a picture of stars on the front, “At least he doesn’t send me those stupid snow globes anymore.”

There aren’t words.  Reyna’s Mother brushes the girl’s hair from her face.  Reyna flips the blank lined pages in the book.  Petals bites his lip and watches the crumpled paper.

“I really thought he would come this time,” Reyna says, “I can’t believe I had faith in him!”

“You still have your graduation,” her Mother says, “he might come to that.”

“He won’t,” Reyna says, and her Mother frowns.  Reyna looks into her Mother’s eyes, “Why does he cancel?  Can’t I be more important than business?  Can’t he cancel work for me, instead of the other way around?  Just once, can I have that?”

The word ‘business’ snaps Petals out of his daze.  Fingers around one of the slats of the bench, he watches the women.  They’re hugging now.

“Reyna, why are you unhappy?”

The women pull apart.  They’ve forgotten Petals was there.  

Reyna composes herself; pushes her hair behind her ear, “I’m sorry, I’m sure you don’t want to know about my silly dramas.”

“You’re my friend.  I’d like to know why you’re unhappy.”

She inhales, then nods.  “It’s just, my Dad,” she sighs, gets up, picks up the paper, and unfolds it, as if expecting to find something else written on it this time.  She deposits the paper into a trash can, “there’s a dinner for honor students coming up at my school.  He was supposed to come.”

Her mother says, “We reserved a seat and everything!”  

“Mom, please.”

Petals says, “Your Father broke his promise.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s a grown-up, and grown-ups are known to break promises.  It’s, hurtful.”

“Yeah.”

It is really a funny thing.  Across the universe, it’s agreed that Fathers are meant to protect their children.  But Reyna’s Father has hurt her.  This isn’t the first time he’s seen it happen either.  Fathers are just as good as hurting as protecting, it seems, though it’s not in the job description.  Mothers hurt their children too.  Sometime they don’t realize they’re hurting them.

Reyna’s Mother’s eyes are traveling back and forth, “But the reservation!  We can’t sit at a table with an empty chair.  People will talk, Reyna!”  She sounds like she’s scolding.  She gets her phone out and starts going through her contacts, “I should call Fisher!  No, no, vacation with the kids.  Oh, what to do?"

 _“Mom!”_  Reyna buries her face in her hands.

“Don’t use that tone with me!”  Reyna’s Mother’s voice seems to be getting higher, and thinner, “We can’t have an empty chair at our table!  You just can’t be seen that way!”

“I know but,” he mumbled, face still in her hands, “do we have to do this _now_?”

“Yes!  Yes.  The honor ceremony is _to-mor-row_ ,” she draws out the word, as if Reyna is actually not smart enough to understand it otherwise.  Petals draws into himself.  He knows the older woman is upset about something, but it seems unfair to flutter around Reyna like this when she has just been hurt.

“Do you-” his voice is so soft, so catching, he needs to start again, “I mean, are you saying that you need a person to sit in a chair?”

“You can put it that way, Mr. Prince.”

Why does she have to call him that?  But Petals says, “I-I-I’m good at sitting in a chair.”

***

“Petals!  Hey Petals, wake up.  Flower head?  Prince!   _Little Prince_ , hey!”

“Huh?  What?”

He’s opens his eyes.  He’s in the backseat of the car, where he’s being roused from sleep.  Reyna is leaning over, in the space of the door, looking at him with amusement.

“You fell asleep in no time.  What are you, tired or something?”

Petals puts his hand on his cheek and thinks about the question, “I’m not, right now, I don’t think.  Just drowsy from sleep.”

“Well, that’s great, because we’re here.”

“That makes sense.  I’ve never been in a place that wasn’t here, and it would be strange if I was.”

Reyna gives a hissing laugh and shakes her head, “Get out, will you?  I want to show you around.”

He unfolds himself from the car.  He’s in a driveway, by a lawn, in a neighborhood, with many driveways and lawns.  And houses, too.  This one is the same shape as the others, but painted in vibrant greens and golds and reds.  It’s lovely.  The Rose definitely likes it, _“How magnificent!”_

“You like it?  We probably need to re-paint the place, it’s chipping.  But it suits us,” she walked close to him, and leans in conspiratorially, “most importantly, it drives property prices down.”

“Oh!”  Beautiful _and_ clever!  Very nice!

There is a fence to one side of the yard, and peaking over the fence, and house that looks different from the others, “That one is nice, too.”

Reyna crinkles her nose, “Thought you would say that.  It’s where he lived, before he left.”

“He?”

“Our friend, the Aviator.”

“Oh!” he puts his hands behind his back and approaches the fence.  There’s trees peeking over, but other than that, it’s a plain fence, “It looks like a home of many laughs.  Good.  I glad he lived in such a place.”

“It really was,” Reyna holds onto the new notebook from today, then her eyes settle on the Prince’s face, questioning, “Did he um, did he ever make it to your planet?”

Petals smiles wide, “He did!  There was much catching up and laughter to be had.”

“Oh, I’m so glad!  He’s- he’s well then?”

“I believe so?  Charting the stars in that rickety airplane.  He was never a person to stay in one place for long,” he bites his lip, because he’s leaving certain parts out, but he also doesn’t want Reyna’s warmth to switch to anger for turning The Aviator away.  His planet is just, very small, and he does not like guests to linger in his home.

“I guess so.  He must be glad not to burdened by an old shell,” she hugs the book to her chest, “good then.  And thank you, Prince.”

***

Mrs. Ness is prepping the guest room- fluffing the pillow and moving the picture of kittens back.  Her ex hated kittens- he probably still does.  Mrs. Ness would be willing to force him to sleep in a room with a picture of two kittens sleeping on a pink frilly pillow, but Reyna had specifically requested the kittens removed.  For her sake, she had.  Putting the kittens back is hardly a victory, considering what her ex did.

Peter will sleep in here, and Reyna will sleep in the room across the hall, and-

She drops the pillow she’s fluffing.   _And_ they’re both teenagers, and they’re friends, who met by circumstances that are still somewhat mysterious to the Mrs. Ness.  She’s made a terrible mistake, she realizes.

So she meets the kids as they’re coming in from outside, in the doorway.  She claps her hands together, and looks between Reyna and Peter, “OK, you two.  Peter’s allowed to stay here for a day or two, but I want to make something clear: there will be no funny business!”

Reyna groans, “Mom, seriously?  Peter’s my friend, _that’s it_.”

But Peter just looks confused, and says, “Of course not!  Business is not funny.”

Mrs. Ness just glares at him, and Peter jumps a little.  What a jumpy kid he is.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Reyna says, “believe me.  If you’re worried about it, I dunno, maybe we can have him sleep in the Aviator’s house?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.  That house has been empty for years- our neighbor wouldn’t want strange boys sleeping in it.”

“Peter isn’t strange!  Well, not like that.  But anyway, I don’t think he would mind even if he was!  I'm sure of it...”

“Honey,” Mrs. Ness rolls her eyes, “it’s off the grid.  There’s no heat or lights in there.  The poor guy will freeze.”

“True,” Reyna says with one-shoulder-shrug, “all I’m saying is you really don’t have to worry.  Can I show Peter the guest room?”

***

They’re almost up the stairs when Petals speaks to Reyna, though in a hushed voice, “Is it allowed, for you to offer the Aviator’s house to me?”

“Actually, yes,” Reyna’s skipping over every other stair, for fun, “he didn’t have children, so he left the house to me,” she presents a sideways smile, “so, I’m not even grown yet, and a homeowner already.”

“So you have two homes?”

“I guess?” she shrugs, “His house really hasn’t felt like a home in years.  I-I just got over there from time to for some small maintenance work.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  Keep the vines from overgrowing, make sure the water still runs, and I’m slowly replacing the roof.  But I’m just one person and I’m figuring it out as I go along.  And- my Mom’s right, the power’s cut off.  So I think I’ll need an electrician once we’re back on the grid again.  Which we will be, sometime next fall,” she sighs, “I just have to wait a few more months.”

“A few more months?  For what?”  They’re walking down a hall now.

“That’s when I turn eighteen.  That’s when I’m a legal adult, and I can finally take ownership of my property.”  

“A legal adult?  Can you be an adult illegally?”

“I-” she holds up one finger, “you know, I don’t know.  I never thought about that before.”

He plays with his hoodie drawstrings, “I know it’s possible to be a child illegally.  Perhaps it’s like that?  If you’re an illegal adult, someone will just make you into a child again.”

Reyna presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth.  Yikes, she's not sure she wants to have that conversation.  Luckily, they're to the guestroom.  She pushes open the door, “So, here’s it is!”

The boy sticks his head in while keeping his toes just out of the threshold, “So very gray.”

“Oh yeah, I guess.”  Reyna twirls a strand of hair.  The room does look kind of- spartan, now that Petals points it out.   “The whole house used to be gray, but we redecorated.  Guess we never got around to this room.  Unless you count my Mom’s tacky kittens,” she says, narrowing her eyes, “I can’t believe she snuck them back in here!”

“I like the kittens.”

“Oh.  Good!  Then you’ll be happy here.”

“I don’t like the guest room.”

Reyna takes a breath, then makes a kind of broken chainsaw noise, “Ahhhh?  You don’t like it?”

“No.  It’s-” he seems to struggle for words for a few seconds, then he gestures to the ceiling, “I can’t see the stars.  I prefer to sleep under the stars.”

“Well, I have plastic glow-stars in my room,” she giggles, “but I’m pretty sure my Mom would have a heart attack if you slept in there.”

Petals looks a bit disturbed, “I don’t want to hurt your Mom!”

Oh, poor guy.  He really doesn’t understand why her Mother is worried, does he?  Then again, she’s a little glad, because it’s so stupid.  

Reyna puts a hand on his sleeve, “You won’t,” she twirls her hair, thinking, “hey, what about the roof?”

Pretty soon, she’s popping the emergency ladder down and leading Petals onto the roof of her house.  Of course, there are no visible stars to greet them.  The sun is hovering over the horizon, getting ready to set.  The roof is pretty bare, but for the telescope, and this worries Reyna.

“I’m sorry it’s so stark.”

“I like stark.  My planet is stark.”

“Oh.  Good point, I guess.”

Petals walks around the perimeter, “Reyna, this is perfect!  I can see all of the sky, and I can see what’s going on below!  I love roofs.”

“You do?”

“I do!  Why do you sound so surprised?”

“Well when I met you you were cleaning the roofs, and you weren’t happy.”

He puffs out his chest, “Well, I love roofs!   For all the reasons I stated earlier.  No one can take that away from me!  Not even the Businessman of Asteroid B 328!”

Reyna allows a smile to take over her face, stands shoulder to shoulder with him, “Good.  I’m glad you like it here.”  A wind rattles through the telescope, and gives her a chill.  Reyna pulls her cardigan around her body, “It’s way too cold, though.  And it’ll get colder when the sun goes down.  It’s only April.  It would be cruel to make you sleep out here.”

_“But it’s much colder on the Prince’s planet.  And neither of us mind drafts, anymore.”_

“What?”  Of all the weird things Petals has said, that was one of the weirdest.  “The Prince’s planet?  Is there another Prince?”

Petals laughs, “Only me.”

“But-”

“That was my Rose, speaking of me,” he smiles, “I should introduce you two, now!  Or rather, re-introduce.”

So he tells her about the Rose in his head.


	4. Chapter 4

When Petals sees that Reyna’s Mother is preparing brussel sprouts for dinner, he makes himself scarce, with some sort of explanation about allergies.  He walks through the strange, boxy, gray town as the sun hovers closer to the horizon.  Not many people are walking on the road, so he finally chances to take his hood from his head.  His petals stretch for the retreating sun, gladly.  It makes the Rose so sad to have to hide. **  
**

He doesn’t need to eat.  Food, warmth, breathing- all those things are just done for amusement, anyway.  What he does need, absolutely, are sunlight and starlight.  Those two things are oh so very essential.

He doesn’t need to eat, but he is tempted as he passes a restaurant emitting the sweet fragrance of pancakes.  He almost goes in, until he realizes there are grown-ups inside.  Oh, grown-ups would want money in exchange for food.  He already knows how that works.

As he’s heading back, the sun finally melts into the horizon.  “It’s beautiful,” Petals says, “but it makes me so very, very sad.”

_It will rise again tomorrow, just as it has risen every day before now._

“I know,” Petals says, “but I do not always believe that will happen.  It’s hard to have faith, sometimes.”

_What about this moment?  Do you have faith?_

Petals searches his thoughts and realizes he does, “Yes.  The universe is good, the sun will come up, and you will come back.”

 _I will, certainly, because the Prince of the Stars will be waiting for me,_ The Rose yawns, _but for now, I must wish you a good night._

“Good night, my sweet Flower.”

The sun passes under the horizon, and only a lingering pinkness stays to buffer the oncoming twilight.  Petals can no longer feel the presence of his Rose.  It is as if he was holding onto her stem, and someone yanked it out of his grasp.  

His petals dehydrate and curl and tighten on his head.  He hurries back to Reyna’s house.

***

Since their guest isn’t joining them for dinner, Reyna and her Mother feel no shame about using the time after to fill out their calendars for the next month.  It’s probably weird to other families, but it’s something that they bond over.  

“Oh look, the the twenty fifth, looks like we have a free day.”

“Hmm, I don’t think so.  Remember the Mathlete Semi-Finals?”

“Oh, how can I forget?”

“Will you be coming, Mom?”

“And miss you cream those Sireebrel Academy fools?  Not for the world,” then, a small gasp, “wait a minute, who’s going to drive you to your violin lessons on the sixteenth?  I’m tied up for the whole day.”

  
“Don’t worry, I already talked to Violet’s mom about it.  And uh,” Reyna looked at her mom’s marked up calendar, “hasn’t this function on the tenth been canceled?”

“By George, you’re right!  So we can have that picnic we’ve been looking forward to!”

“That’s great!  I can’t wait to show you this place I found with my class!  We should probably bring extra sweaters though, just in case.”

One of the phones ring- it’s one of her Mother’s ringtones.  “ _Logan_ ,” the women both say at once.  Scheduling is over it seems- which is fine, because it feels like they were on the cusp of being done anyway.  

Reyna offers to put the calendars away as her Mother answers the phone.  That task done, she decides to check on her guests, who she noticed sneaking in earlier.  Unsurprisingly, the emergency ladder is down.  Reyna climbs this.

Ah, there they are, sitting cross legged in the middle of the roof with the telescope on his lap, removed from the stand.  They're turning it over, as if trying to figure it out.  There is a pile of blankets and pillows she brought up not far from them.  “Hey you two,” Reyna calls, as she walks over, “whatcha doing?”

“Hello, Reyna.  I’ve seen these,” it's Petals who speaks, “I’ve used them before.  But this one perplexes me.”

She takes something off the end of the telescope, “Did you try removing the cap?” now that she’s close to him, she can notice his head, and she gasps.  “Petals, your petals!” they’re discolored, kind of purpley, and paperlike, and all curled in and dehydrated.

“Don’t be concerned.  It’s only night.”

“Your petals die at night?”

He flinches, “Reyna, my Rose is already dead.  My petals were never alive.  She's not here now.”

“But I- I-” her face twists, “I thought she was back.”

“Back- but not alive,” he looks at the telescope in his hands, “there are certain thresholds that, once crossed, can’t be crossed again the other way.”

Reyna presses her lips together, and looks at the sky, “Like the Aviator.  He can’t come back to Earth, can he?”

“No, it’s impossible.”

She knew this.  Doesn’t stop her from wishing it wasn’t true.  There are things she’d like to tell him, show him and see his reaction.  Like memes, how he would laugh at those!  Some of them, anyway.

She cocks her head down at the boy, “But you can.  Why is that?”

“I’m not sure, really.  Perhaps it’s just that,” he shrugs, “this place has never been home to me.”

Reyna purses her lips, “But you can go back to your real home any time you like.  Your planet.”

The Prince is silent.  Worry clings to the edges of Reyna’s heart.  She tries to change the subject.

“Petals, will you leave Earth this time?”

“Of course.  There is much to see on your planet, but I shouldn’t stay here.”

“When you leave, are you going to…”

He’s peeking through the telescope at the roof, but he stops to give Reyna a quizzical look.

She lowers herself to a sit, and hugs her knees.  She looks up at the stars, and Petals’ eyes go that way too.

“Will you die?”

“I won’t.  I can’t.”

“You _can’t?”_

“My Rose is bound to this shell.  If I die and I’m not on my home planet, she’ll be lost- scattered to all corners of the universe.”

Reyna is looking at him now, eyes wide, “Are you serious?”

The Prince nods, eyes still on the sky.

“So, this is it for you, huh?  You have to try and stay alive.  Not because you’ll lose your life-”

“I’ll lose her,” his eyes cast down, “it would be like, if night lasted forever,” there is a hitch in his voice, “with no stars to guide my heart.  I- I don’t like to think about it.”

Reyna thinks about the shriveled petals on his head, and imagines them shriveling away even more, to nothing, to dust.  “Does the Rose know this will happen?”

“No- thankfully.  She’s unaware, just glad enough to accompany me,” he looks up, “and you won’t tell, will you?”

“Of course not.”  She feels, if possible, even more sad for her friend.  Imagine carrying around such a terrible worry for the person you loved the most, and not being able to share it with them.  She takes his hand.

He squeezes it, “At least the sun always rises.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does.  And I would like to use this telescope, now that you’ve fixed it,” he tries to hold it aloft, but almost drops it on his face before Reyna swoops in and grabs it.

“It’s too big for holding, Goober!  Here, we’ll put it back on the stand,” and she does, under the Prince’s observation.  The boy moves in like smoke and starts adjusting the telescope while peeking through every once in awhile.  Finally he declares, “I can see our sheep with this!”

“The sheep?  The one the Aviator drew for you?  She’s out there?”

“Well, not exactly ‘out there’,” Petals shrugs, “I’m ‘out there’, and she’s safe on my planet.”

That was a funny way to put it, and she again wonders whether there is some force keeping Petals from returning home.  She shakes her head, though.

“Can I see?”   She puts her eye to the viewer and looks, but all she can see is a kind of glowy, blurry polka dot on the blackness.  “I must have moved it in my excitement.  Can you point it to your planet again?”

“The telescope didn’t move at all, though,” Petals says, “I don’t think?  Let me see,” he bends to look through it, “Nope, she’s still there!  And one of my volcanoes is erupting.  It’s throwing off very vibrant lava!”

Reyna looks again.  Still, all she can see is the polka dot.  And maybe- just maybe, she can convince herself that she can see a tinier spot of red on the underside of it.  “I guess my eyes aren’t as good as yours,” she says.

“They’re blind.  Look with the heart, instead.”

Reyna pouts.

“What?”

“I wanted to see your sheep, outside of it’s box.  To really see it, I mean.  The way a grown-up does.”

“But why?  She’s not an extraordinary sheep.  She’s young, and strong, and small, but she’s not extraordinary.  You have probably seen sheep like her.”

“She’s your sheep, though.  Doesn’t that count for something?”

“She’s actually the Rose’s sheep.  She was a gift to her.”

“Oh!”

The wind blows again.  Reyna thinks that she wouldn’t be out here long.  Even with her jacket, it’s too cold for her.  There is a clunking sound behind her.  Petals has fallen backwards, onto his back.  She cringes.  She definitely heard the sound of his skull hitting the cement.

“Jeez, Petals!”

“What?”

“You’re going to give yourself a concussion.”

“Oh!  I concern you.  I’m sorry.”

“I mean, at least fall on a pillow or something?”  With that, she gets a pillow and a flannel blanket and brings it over.  She puts the pillow under his poor wilted head and puts spreads the blanket over him, though not without him propping up his knees so it can’t fall flat.  

“Why so much concern for me?  I’m not even from your world.”

“You’re my friend, Goober, so you gotta deal with it,” she sticks out her tongue, “friends are always concerned about each other.  Even when there’s nothing to be concerned about.”

“Stargaze with me.”

So quick from one subject to the next.  It takes Reyna a second or two to catch up.  “We just did, a moment ago, didn’t we?”  

“Not with the telescope.  Like this.  The telescope is dishonest.  It makes the sky seem small and confined.”

So she grabs another pillow, and a blanket, because she’s shivering, and puts it down so that the tops of their heads are closest to one another.  She lays on the blanket, folding the other half over her.  Even with the fabric beneath her, the coolness of the roof seeps into her back.  It won’t be long before she leaves.

But for the moment, she’s taken by the majesty of the ink black sky, unbroken in all directions, and speckled with lights.  It really is large- so much larger than her, or her world, or anything she has ever touched.  

“Aren’t they beautiful?  I never get tired of looking at them.  Never,” he adds, “though, sunrises are more beautiful.”

It makes sense he would think so, since sunrises are when his Rose returns to him.  “They are, aren't they?  Especially the sunrise we saw together back then.”

“Yes!  It was the most beautiful sunrise of all!”

***

He wakes up, alone, with not even stars in the sky to give him company.  He isn’t worried, though.  The sky has turned a grayish blue color, and along one horizon there is a strip of melony orange.  Opposite where the stripe was the previous night.

He gets up, throwing the blankets off.  It was nice having them, but Petals hardly ever sleeps under a blanket.  

It would be easy enough to go through the house, but he chooses to scramble down the roof instead, using the gutter, the satelite dish, and a windowsill to get down.  A clean decent, though the dish now sticks out at an odder angle.

He’s glad to be on the ground, and searches said ground, hands behind his back, and face nearly to the dirt.  He circles the house and, not finding what he’s looking for, scales the fence to Reyna’s other house.  Again, he can just walk around, but he’s feeling antsy, and he only has a little bit of time to get this right.

He finds it on this side of the fence- soil!  He sits, pushes aside some dandelions, then plunges all ten of his fingers into the dirt.  He’s not satisfied until his hands are buried up the to the wrists.  Then he waits, watching the dawning horizon.

A warmth fills him.  His petals shake off their deadness and reach up for the sun, straightening and turning a vibrant red. _I awake, and I’m rooted!  Oh My Prince, how kind of you to think of my needs!_

“A beautiful Flower must meet the day with her roots in the ground.  This is absolutely essential.”

 _Indeed,_ the sun climbs higher into the sky, _such a magnificent sunrise.  I told you I would come back, did I not?_


	5. Chapter 5

_I have an atrocious thirst._

Petals opens his eyes, the words rousing him.  It’s a little too chilly to be soaking in the sun anyway, and the sun’s too young in the day for it.

He goes back to the other house, this time walking around the fence.  The door’s locked, so he climbs in through the kitchen window.  He goes to the kitchen, gets glass out of hiding, and turns on the tap.  He drinks, then fills the glass again, and drinks.  Fills the glass, drinks.

He drinks until the Rose says it’s enough.  It took four glasses this time.  He turns the tap off and washes the glass in the sink.  There are other dishes here, the dirt on them older, so he washes these too.  All goes smoothly until a brussel sprout tumbles off a plate into the rinsing basket.  “Ugh,” Petals says.

 _It looks so much like a rose!  How can civilized people eat it?_  

“It doesn’t look that much like a rose.  I mean maybe if you got really, really old, and sick, turned green, and dried up…”

_You aren’t funny, Prince.  Get rid of it, please!_

Petals picks it up with the edges of his fingernails and flings it out the window.  He can’t do it fast enough.

He finishes the rest of the dishes and leaves them in the rack.  He’s glad not to find any more brussel sprouts.  He leans against the counter and sighs.

It’s quite early.  The sun’s still climbing away from earth.  A sunrise takes so long to happen, here!  At least that means it will not be in a hurry to set again.  

He decides to do some cleaning.  First, he locates cleaning supplies.  Then he pulls a chair to the middle of the room and starts dusting the ceiling fan.  Some cobwebs come off, but he doesn’t locate the spider that made it.  Or perhaps cobwebs are actually made by cobs, but if that’s true, he’s never seen a cob in his life so he doesn’t know what one looks like.  

He takes all the dishes out of all the cupboards and then dusts the cupboards, then puts away the dishes he’s washed and washes the cupboard dishes.  The dish rack is very high and balancing rather precariously.

He’s in the midst of washing the floor when Reyna’s Mother steps in.

“Peter!  What are you doing?  What’s going on here?”

She’s in her white bathrobe, her feet bare.  Petals waves, from the other side of the kitchen.  There’s a whole cleaned floor between them, “Hello, Reyna’s Mom!”

“Mrs. Ness.”

“Oh.  Thank you!”  He says the name several times, to remember.

“Peter!  Why are you cleaning my floor?  At six o’clock in the morning?”

“Ah, well, I woke up with the sunrise.  The house was not awake, so I knew you weren’t either.  So, I started cleaning.”

Her eyebrows endeavour to get closer to one another, “Peter, you know that you’re staying here as our guest, right?  You don’t have to do things for us.”

“I know that!  I want to!”

“Want to?”

“Yeah.  It’s, relaxing?” Mrs. Ness still looks quizzical, so Petals goes on, “It’s something I can do to improve the state of the universe, for myself, and for others too.  Just a little, but, even a small improvement is still an improvement.”

“But Peter,” Mrs. Ness points out, “entropy.  This cleaned floor will just become dirty again.”

“I’m aware of that.  But at the present, it’s clean.  And I think that the present is quite important, don’t you?”

She cocks her head, looking at something behind him, “Did you wash all of my dishes, too?”

“Ah, well, I hadn’t planned to wash any dishes other than those I found in the sink this morning.  But I dusted the cupboards.  And I had to take the dishes out to do so.  But after I did, so dust got in the air I was afraid I might have dirtied these other dishes, so I washed them.”

“You dusted the cupboards?”  

“The ceiling fan, too!”

Mrs. Ness’s arms fall to her side, “I didn’t know the cupboards didn’t need to be dusted.”

Petals rolls his eyes up to think about this, “I don’t believe they needed it.  But I believe they’re happier now that it’s been done.”

“Well.  Jeez.  I should hire you.  Let you clean my house from top to bottom.”

“I wouldn’t work for you,” Petals says, the line of his mouth getting firm.

“You wouldn’t?”

“No.  I don’t want to work for anyone.”

“What, you don’t want a job?”

“No.”

Mr. Ness tsks, “And how are your going to make any money in this world if you don’t have a job?”

“Well, I am not going to stay on this world for long.  Just long enough to see everything.”

“What?”

She’s confused.  She’s not listening.  She should just listen.

“Erm, well,” Mrs. Ness shakes her head, “what I mean to say is, thank you.  But ah-”

“Oh?”

“There’s a problem.”

Petals grips his mop handle tighter, “There is?  Have a made a mistake?”

She gestures to his feet, “Look for yourself.  How are you going to get out?  You’ve mopped yourself into a corner.”

Indeed, she’s right.  The floor is shiny and spotless, and also wet, and also oh so easy ruin.  And Petals’ shoes aren’t exactly clean.  

“Oh!  I always seem to do this!  How foolish of me!”  He laughs, trying to make it some sort of joke, but inside his heart is rocking on a sea of dread, mixed with a sort of panic.  Words are yelled in his head, not by the Rose.  Petals is an idiot, and failure, a disgrace.  

They are loud enough to get her attention, and she sounds distraught when she speaks, _Darling, no!  You’ve done nothing wrong!  You are better at cleaning a floor than I, and look how accomplished I am!  Have kindness for yourself, my Prince._

Mrs. Ness tsks though, “So do I- so do I!  Reyna and I have even developed a contingency plan for it.”

“Contingency plan?”

“Yep!  Stay right there, Peter!”

Petals rolls his eyes.  He doesn’t have a choice.  

When Mrs. Ness returns, she has a rolling office chair, and a long handled broom.  She leans out to put the chair as far into the kitchen as she can, then pushes it with the broom to Petals.  Petals jumps onto the chair, then takes the handle near the broom and Mrs. Ness pulls him in until he can leap onto the carpet.

She says, “You’re free!”

Petals chooses not to correct her as she hasn’t spoken to the Old Fox.  He looks back over the floor, seeing dirty tracks ending with the chair.  “I think that made your floor messier than if I had just walked over.”

“Maybe,” Mrs. Ness shrugged, “but entropy, right?  It was bound to happen.”

He looks at the woman, trying to figure out what that means.  Then it comes to him- a game!  She had just played a game with him, and Petals hadn’t even realized he was having fun!  Then he face breaks into a smile, “Perhaps I wouldn’t mind being employed by you.”

“You won’t be saying that when you see what I pay you.”

“I don’t care for money, anyway.”

“Oh?  Then I’ll just pay you in paperclips.”

Petals blinks, “I’ll pass,” he’s only a few feet away from Mrs. Ness now.  She has Reyna’s height, so he’s taller than she is.

Mrs. Ness exclaims, though, “What’s wrong with your hair?”

Nothing of course, except for that his hood is sitting on his shoulders instead of his head, and it wasn’t yesterday.  But his head is the same way it was yesterday, and the day before.

“Is it matted?  Some sort of condi- _it’s not hair!”_  

“They’re flower petals.  Don’t touch them!”  He has to grab her hand because she’s already reaching for his scalp.

“But- is that real?”

“Of course they’re real flower petals.”

“Is the kitchen floor clean?”

It’s Reyna who spoke.  She’s wearing blue top and bottom pajamas with little sleeping foxes on them.  Her hair sticks up at odd angles, “You’ve been cleaning, Mom?  This early in the day?”

Mrs. Ness sidesteps away from Petals a little, “Wish I could take credit, but I can’t.  It was all Peter,” she gestures an open palm toward him.

Reyna looks at Petals incredulously, “You did this?”  Petals nods, “Who goes to somebody’s house and cleans their floor of their volition?”

“I do.”

***

Reyna has to leave for school, a word that fills Petals with a bit of dread, though he’s had enough experience by now to know that most schools aren’t like the one he went to.  And Reyna certainly isn’t dragging her heels out the door.  In fact, she’s running for her bag before her cereal is even gone from the bowl, “Sorry Mom, you mind getting that?  I’ll eat an extra fruit at lunch to make up for it!”

As for Petals and Mrs. Ness, they leave the newly-dirtied dishes in the sink and hop in the car.  Mrs. Ness wants to rent a tuxedo for him, which is slightly unpleasant.  The Prince had never liked the idea of other people choosing what he’s to wear, especially things with ties and belts.  Pure torture!  But it’s only for one night, and he’s doing it to help Reyna.  

He wishes he could be with her, until he remembers she’s at school.  

At least no one at the tuxedo rental place touch his petals, but they do whisper about them they think he’s not paying attention, “So unfortunate!” “Is it genetics or malnutrition?”.

Even Mrs. Ness says something on the ride home; “Too bad they don’t call for exceedingly formal attire.  We could put a top hat on you.”

He’s glad to return to the painted house, mostly because he can escape the car.  Mrs. Ness leaves the vehicle before he does though, and by the time his feet are on the concrete, she’s going through mail in her mailbox.  “Bill, bill, bill, ad, ad, vote for me.  Wait a minute, Munity College?  What’s this?”  She looks at Petals, but the boy just shrugs because how is he supposed to know what whatever that is is?

A car pulls up in front of the home, and with a slam Reyna exits the back of the vehicle.  “Thanks Violet!  See ya!”  She waves as the car pulls out, and jogs across the lawn.  “Hey Mom!  Hey Petals!  Did you guys get a tux?”

“Yes honey, a nice one.  Reyna, would you look at this?  I can’t believe Munity College is trying to convince you to attend.  Don’t they know you’re not Munity material?  Might as well throw it away,” she leans over a garbage can, which she pops open with a pedal, “it’s junk.”

“Oh!” Reyna exclaims, “Uh, Mom, let me have that?”

“Why?”  But Mrs. Ness hands it over.

“I’ll throw it away!”  She jogs into the house, her backpack bouncing behind her.

“Huh?  Honey, there’s a trashcan right-” but the door has shut, and Reyna can’t hear.  Mrs. Ness sighs, “I suppose I can’t blame her for being a little forgetful at times.  She is very accomplished.  Honor student, competes for her school, and she volunteers.  In fact, she’ll be reading to kids this afternoon.”

Mrs. Ness’s pocket makes a pleasant little jingle.  Her phone.  It’s gone off several times today, but this is the first time it’s gone off when Petals wasn’t in the car or being measured.  For once, he can walk away rather than listening to half of a business-laden conversation.

She is definitely a grown-up.  Petals is drowning in her presence.

***

Reyna reads the acceptance letter a second time.  All the elements together- the school’s seal on the letterhead, the signature at the bottom, even the font the letter is written in give her a warm feeling.

“Wow.  Is this where you sleep?”

Petals is in the doorframe.  Reyna sets the letter on the bed.

“Yep!  This is my room.”

“It’s very cluttered.”

Reyna is stung for a moment, but remembers it’s the Prince she’s talking to, and he probably doesn’t realize his words sound unkind.

“It’s not cluttered.  It has a lot of me in it,” she says.

“These things are all you?”  He examines a toy rubber boa constrictor that's suspended by from the ceiling.

“They’re, sentimental?  I guess?  Memories are attached to them.  Or they remind me of places or people I’ve known.  For instance, that snake reminds me of Aviator.  Boa constrictors were his favorite animal.

"Oh!" Petals pulls his fingers off the snake, "I thought it was your favorite animal!"

Reyna snorts, "Oh no, I like foxes."

Petals opens the snake's mouth to look at the teeth, “So things can have memories attached to them.  Help them stay rooted, so we remember,” he bends the tail, “I don’t have many things, so my mind is the only place where my memories can stay.  It’s a wonder they don’t all crowd each other and slip out,” he looks sad, now, and takes his hand off the toy.

“Why not keep a journal?” Reyna gets up from her bed.

“A journal?”

“Like this,” from a shelf, she pulls out the shooting star notebook from yesterday.  She hands it to Petals, who flips through the pages.  

“That is a very pretty cover for a notepad.”

“It’s not a notepad- it’s a journal.  If you want it.  If you’d like something else,” she gestures to the shelf, “I have a whole bunch of them, with different covers.  None of them are marked at all,” she tries not to let bitterness seep into her voice.  The books are fine, and at least have a use, but they don’t replace what she’s not receiving.

“I like this one,” Petals says, “I like stars.”

“I know you do.”

The Prince smiles, but screws up his mouth looking down at the notebook.  “But what am I meant to write in here?”

“Anything you want.  Your thoughts.  Your experiences.”

The Prince’s eyes widen, “My memories!”

“Yes!”

“Oh!” he hugs her, “Thank you!  This is a wonderful gift!”

“Well I’m glad someone gets to enjoy it!  It’s not the journal’s fault I never would have used it.”

“Yes,” he pulls back to look at the cover again, “it was just a journal before, but now it’s unique in all the universe, because it’s mine.”

Reyna giggles.

“What?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  I guess I’m just happy to make you happy.”

Petals walks deeper into the room, and hangs over her bed, cocking his head.  “'Munity College,'" he reads, "I thought this was supposed to be thrown away?”

Reyna leans over the bed oddly, because Petals is now blocking direct access to the letter, and snatches it from under him, “Well, that’s my Mom’s idea.”

“And your idea is different?”

Reyna sits back into the bed, and draws her legs under her, and looks at the letter with a frown.  Her mother always seems to have the wrong idea about what makes her happy.

“I can throw it away _for_ you,” Petals offers.

“No,” Reyna looks up, “don’t.  It’s important.”

Petals nods.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“You can, and I’ll keep it secret,” Petals sits on the bed, ready.

Reyna takes a breath.  She hasn’t told anyone this, not with audible words.  Other kinds of words, yes.  Words written in frustration into a blog posts, seen by a collection of people she knows well but has never been in the same place with.  But to say it out loud is a hurdle.

“I don’t want to be a rocket scientist when I grow up.”

“OK.”

It’s not the response Reyna expects after dropping such an incendiary confession.  

“I don’t want to be an economist, or a statistician, or a meteorologist.”

“OK,” Petals says, “me neither,” he hugs his elbows, “I probably would fail at them anyway.”

“I don’t want to go to Steegis University.”

“OK.”

The Prince’s face is pleasant, but neutral.  Too neutral.  He doesn’t know at all, so he doesn’t care at all.  Reyna picks up another piece of paper, from the bedstand.  It’s got a similar format, but the letterhead is a little more elegant, and the signature is loopier, and the font is even more pleasing to the eye than the Munity College font.  She waves this in front of her friend’s face.

“Petals, Steegis is one of the best universities in the region.  People who go there are the top of the top of their classes.  You know, geniuses.  If you go to Steegis, you can have a very secure career in the realms of finance or science.”

“But that’s not what you want, so why should you go?”

Reyna exhales, and hands the two acceptance letters over “My mom wants me to.  My teachers want me to.  It’s a very smart decision for me to make.  It would be foolish to make any other.”

Petals narrows his eyes.  He’s not buying this.  “It’s your decision only, though.  If you want to be a fool, then you should be.”

Reyna laughs.  She realizes that the Prince means ‘fool’ as the highest sort of compliment, but other people wouldn’t.  But more importantly, he supports her decision!  That is, the decision she wants to make, not the decision that other people want to make for her.

“Not a fool, exactly, but close, or so I hear,” she tucks some stray hair behind her ear, “a teacher.”

But Petals draws back as if bit, “A teacher?!”

Reyna blinks, but goes on, “Um, yeah.  A primary school teacher.  It’s my dream,” she looks at her hands, “but no one knows, OK?”

“A teacher.  A teacher!”  He runs his hands through his petals, “Really?  A teacher?  Of all things?”

“Yes?”  Reyna feels like there’s a sinkhole at the bottom of her stomach, and all of her confidence and earlier elation is draining out of it.

“A teacher,” he covers half his face with his hand, “I hate teachers.”

Hate seems like a strong word from the Prince, and Reyna tries to piece together why he would have such powerful feelings.  Then, she remembers.

“But, not like Him!  He’s the opposite of what I want to grow up to be.  I’m going to be like the Aviator instead.”

“If you want to be like the Aviator, why can’t you be an aviator?”

“Well, I have already taken a couple of flying lessons, but it’s hard to find children to teach when you’re in the air all the time,” she smiles cheekily, “you know, other than the weird alien kids who make you draw sheep for them.”

Petals does not smile, or even laugh.  He just picks up the letters and reads pieces of both, “I understand now.”

Reyna sighs with relief, “So, you think it’s a good idea?  I’ll take classes at Munity- their teaching program is top notch, and I have a scholarship to any school I want.  I’d like to take out a loan and fix up the Aviator’s house and make it into an after school center.  Maybe someday I’ll even be accredited to be a headmistress and I’ll turn it into a little private school.  Like, a Montessori school?  That would be kind of neat.  Or something with my own curriculum that I build from scratch.  But we’re going to focus on instilling confidence, and creativity, and a sense community.  Anyway, that’s my long term dream.”  

She smooths her skirt.  It’s hard to talk about one’s life dream out loud- it leaves you feeling like you’re standing on top of a very high cliff.  On one hand, you’re glad to have make the arduous climb.  On the other, you’re exposed to everything up here.

“Yeah, I understand,” Petals stands up, “your Mom wants you to become the Businessman,” he lets the Steegis University acceptance letter fall on the bed, “and you want to become The Academy Teacher,” he lets the Munity College acceptance letter fall on the bed, “and I just rather you stay yourself!”

Oh.  So he’s not in support.  She’s starts to wobble on the edge of the cliff.  “I’m not going to turn into somebody else!  I’m going to be me, just a better version of me!”

“That’s what the Academy Teacher said!  When he took my memories!”  

_Oh._

“I get it.  You’re gonna become a grown-up like every other, and you’re gonna forget all about me!”

“Petals, no!  I won’t forget you.  You taught me so much!”  How can she explain that she wants to be a teacher because of what she’d learned that summer?  Because of his existence, and the unassuming book her neighbor let her read?

“Just.  Stop talking.  Please,” he puts his hood up, shoves his hands in his pockets and leaves the room, “I’m going to the Himalayas now.”

She’s falling.  She draws her knees up by her face and hides it.  Tears fall into the fabric of her skirt.  Petals thinks it’s a horrible idea, and he’s right.  What an idiot Reyna was even applying for Munity.  She should just go to Steegis.  At least that way she’ll be making at least some people happy.


	6. Chapter 6

To leave, he has to call the birds, and to call the birds, he needs to be on elevated ground.  Or the top of a building.  Petals has already walked away from the painted house, and he doesn’t want to return to get on top of that roof.  It’s not high enough anyway, really.

He hurries through town.  He’s seen the top of some kind of tower, and it looks promising.  His hands and the journal have fallen from his pockets, because they’ve moved.  So he transfers the journal from one hand to the other and clenches his fingers around it.

There is a buzzing in his mind.  Not a sound, but a feeling.  Not exactly pain, but it is unpleasant.

He comes to a chain link fence with a water tower behind it.  There is a ladder to climb the tower.  Yes, this is perfect.  He bites his journal between his teeth.  He leaps onto the fence, digging his fingers between the holes, and starts to climb up.  As a teenager, Petals is an apt climber, fast and squirrel-like.

His foot fails to catch on the fence and slips though, and the rest of him slips with it.  He falls into a pile at the bottom of the fence.  His shoulders are tight; almost up to his ears.  His eyes are closed and his mouth his curled into a grimace.  He eeks one of them them open and looks at his feet.

Plain work boots instead of light, black sneakers.  Full leg pants instead of shorts.  He also realizes his hoodie is gone.  Not that he’s undressed.  He just has a rather drab uniform on now.  With a cursed tie and a cursed belt.

He lays back, sprawling on the grass, “This on top of everything else,” he mutters.  He just noticed how heavy everything feels.  Like his every muscle is a weight.  And his back- oh, his back is tight.  He’s a Grown Up now.

Someone is speaking to him.  Softly.  

“Rose?”

_...nally heard me!_

She’s there.  Just-

“You sound so very far away,” he groans, and puts his arm over his face, “you always sound so very far away when I’m old.”

_Old?  Hardly.  Not even by humans standards.  You hair isn’t even gray._

“My hair isn’t even hair,” he points out, humorlessly.

_You can hear me much clearer now!_

“Yes,” he doesn’t move, “it’s clear, just quiet.  I’m sorry I stopped listening to you.  Did it make you terribly anxious?”

_Of course, dear_ , she chides, _I am a delicate creature, and my needs are not to be ignored._

“I’m sorry, then.”

_Where are we going?_

“We’re leaving.”

_So soon?_

“We must.”

_Must we?_

“Yes!”  He gets to his feet, “She betrayed us!”

_Has she?_

Why is the Rose being like this?  She isn’t usually unobservant- certainly she saw what happened there!  Reyna’s content to become someone terrible, just to avoid being someone less terrible.  

“Yes!” 

He bites down on his journal and jumps onto the fence again.  He climbs, but slower, thinking about every movement.  He gets to the top of the fence and rolls over on his midsection, but he’s not ready for his center of gravity to shift and he falls forward, onto the grass.

“Ouff,” he says, looking at his scraped elbow, and spits out the journal.

_It’s a shame to leave so soon._

“No, it isn’t.”

_Well, what of my needs?_

Petals brushes dirt off his knees and stands up, “What of them?”

_It’s only, there is something about this, something expected._

“Expected?”

The Rose doesn’t continue her thought, though.  It seems like she’s not quite able to find the words it requires at this time.

He starts to climb the ladder- a slow, nervous climb, but steady.  His boot slips on the rung once and he grips tighter onto the bars, but he’s fine, and not falling.  He climbs the rest of the way to the platform ringing the reservoir of the water tower.  He takes the journal out of his mouth, looks up, and whistles.  

The sounds of air only.  No whistling sound.  Petals tries again.  It’s no use.  His mouth is too tense, too nervous to whistle.

He leans on the reservoir, “I can’t even call the birds!”  The journal falls out of his hand.

He puts his hands on his face, “I’m stuck in this place.  Just like the Old Fox.  It doesn’t matter how many places I escape from, I’ll always be in a cage,” he slides down to a sitting position.  His hands fall to his lap and he stares into space, “I am always only pretending to be young and friendly.  I am really just a pathetic, lonely Grown Up.  Anyone who has befriended me will soon see their error.  I’ll be forgotten, and I’ll be alone, and I deserve to be.”

The Rose presents him not with her thorns, but her softness.  He feels like there are silky soft petals in his heart, then a sort of warmth.  

_I’m sorry you hurt so terribly.  But it pains me to hear you say such cruel things about someone I love._

That jolts the man.  “I’m sorry, Rose.”

_Don’t be fooled.  Just because you are unable to love yourself does not mean you should not be loved.  And I will love you stubbornly, regardless of your foolish opinion._

Tears sting his eyes.  He doesn’t know what to say.  At this moment, he finds it all a bit numbing- this excessive loathing he has to his own existence, contrasted with the Rose’s persistent adoration.

_Existence pains you at the moment.  Shall I take over?_

Petals shuts his eyes and considers the offer.  He can, if he so chooses, retreat into himself.  Crawl into some dark corner of his mind and block out the world.  It will be like sleeping.  While he’s gone, the Rose only will wear his face and hands.  She will speak, and run, and do whatever it is a Rose does in a fleshy body, but all the world will see her and think she is him.  

Later he will wake, and feel much more at peace.  He knows this because he’s done it before.  He will be young, but not as young as he’s meant to be, and he will continue.  As always.

But, it means that Rose will have to be him.   _Him._

He sighs, “I can’t impose that punishment on you.”

_It is no punishment.  You know that._

“I do,” he says.  The Rose loves being playing the role of Prince, “in my heart, I know it.  But my mind torments me.”

_It is such cruelty, a mind._

“Agreed.”

_You could use a rest._

Petals isn’t sure isn’t he agrees with that one or not.  His eyes are unfocused, but the Rose says, _My Prince, there is a beautiful view._

Petals lets his eyes focus.  She’s right.  The sky is blue, and sun is accompanied by a few clouds, and the neighborhood below is broken up by bright greens.  He lets out a sigh of relief.  At least he’s way up here.  How good it is to be above things.  

He leans on the bottom part of the railing and looks out over the town.  Any sound from below is muffled, and carried by the wind.  The Rose is quiet, communicating only in her warmth.  His thoughts, which had been coiled in an uncomfortable, downward spiral, loosen and venture out over the town.  His mind is free to wander.  The world continues, he realizes.  The sun will set, and rise again.  The tide will go out.  Flowers will still bloom.  And none of these processes are disrupted by his mistakes.  

He sits there until his hoodie has come back and he’s a little shorter.  

“Thank you, Rose.”

_Feel better?_

“Yes.”

He finds his journal on the platform.  It slips easily into his pocket, but- “Now that this is mine, I should have a way of carrying it .  Something that won’t disappear with my moods.”

_What of a backpack, My Prince?  There are so many youths on this planet who carry those and dress like you do._

He will consider the idea.  For the moment, though, he whistles.  It’s a clear, bright sound, and it carries from the water tower, into the air.  

_So.  We are leaving._

She sounds kind of sad, “Yes,” Petals says.

_Where are we going?  The Himalayas?_

“Well,” Petals says, “I was just now thinking about the Old Fox.”

***

Several of the children gasp, and they point at the book in Reyna’s hands.  “The giant!  The giant!”  

“That’s a feather sandwich!”

Then a gasp from the boy in the back, “HE ATE THE RED HEN!”

Reyna is close to giggling, but instead of letting herself laugh, she decides it’s perfect time to announce, “THE END!”

The kids laugh and rock against each other, enjoying the in inherent hilarity of the intimidating hen being eaten.  That’s the thing about children- the things that are scary to adults are prime humor to them.  It’s so strange, and it must be cherished.  

Reyna is smiling.  She dragged her feet to get here, her discussion with her friend heavy on her mind, but was resolute that none of her heartache would be visible to the students.  They love her weekly sessions so much, and Reyna wants most of all to make them happy.  Now, she has nearly forgotten her sadness.

Reyna shuts the book without showing them the back cover.  “What was everybody’s favorite story?”  She asks, then “Raise your hands!”

The Second Grade Teacher stands to the side, observing Reyna with an unchanging mask.  Does she approve?  Or does she think this book was a little too riotous?  It’s very hard to tell.  Several hands go up from the group of kids on the floor.

“Yes, Robbie?”

“The Tortoise and the Hare’s Hair!  That’s so gross!”

“I like the Really Ugly Duckling!  Because he just gets uglier!”  This is a boy named Hudson.

“No, the Stinky Cheese Man was the best!” Keiana says confidently.

“The Stinky Cheese Man is gross!”  Says Robbie, “Even grosser than the hare’s hair!”

Reyna smiles to herself, but notices Taylor, a young blond by her feet, looking down and silently wringing her hands.

“I would eat the stinky cheese man,” Hudson says quietly, almost too quietly for the others to hear.  Keiana hears him, though.

“No you wouldn’t!  He’s probably all blue and stuff.”

“I would eat him!  I like blue cheese!”

“You never ate blue cheese!  If you ever smelled it you would be sick.”

“Yuh-huh!  I eat blue cheese all the time!”

“Nuh-uh!  You’re lying!”

“Alright, kids, that’s enough fighting!”  The Second Grade Teacher has swept in, “Miss Ness, did you have an activity planned?”

“Oh!”  She stands up.  She had been watching Taylor, wondering what the girl was distressed about, though she had her own idea.  “Well, did you guys like that book?”

“Yeah,” comes a unanimous voice.

“Did you like how the stories were kind of like other stories, but different?”

“Yeah!”

“Would you guys like to try to write a Fairly Stupid Tale of your own?”

The kids murmur among each other, and after a second decide that this is a cool idea.  Reyna and the Second Grade Teacher split the class in two.  Keiana and Robbie are on a team with a bunch of kids and the Second Grade Teacher, and Reyna’s team has Hudson and Taylor and half dozen others.  They women have decided it’s best to seperate Hudson and Keiana, since they always seem to find something to argue about with one another.  

Reyna’s team moves to a table at the front of the room.  Taylor gets up after the rest do.  She’s still wringing her hands.  Reyna stands next to her, and the girl looks up.  

“Hi Miss Ness,” she says quietly.

“Hi,” Reyna shows the book Taylor, but the back cover of it.  She lets the girl take it.  Taylor gasps.

“The Red Hen?”

“She’s alive!”

“Oh!” Taylor holds the book, and sounds out the words.  “‘Who is is _isbin_ guy?’”

“ISBN.  It’s- it’s that,” she points to the barcode in the corner, “it’s a secret code that every book has that makes it unique.  But, the chicken doesn’t like it, I don’t think.”

“It _is_ ugly!”  Taylor says, and giggles, and gives the book back to Reyna, and jogs over to the table to join her team.  Reyna sets the book on the chair and joins them as well.  

Reyna starts them by making a list of all the fairy tales that weren’t parodied in the book.  They pick Hansel and Gretel.  First they think of all the silly gross things the witch can make her house out of, including licorice, blue cheese, and brussel sprouts.  Then they are taken by the idea of the witch who lives in a house made of celery, but dieting Grown-Ups keep trying to eat her house.

Reyna is having the kids write down a sentence of the story one line at a time in round robin format, while the others draw pictures of the celery house.  She is very much enjoying these drawings.  She looks up, and is jolted a little.  

She looks back down at her group, then at doorway.  Yes, he’s still there.  Reyna softly excuses herself to the Second Grade Teacher and steps out of the classroom.  She shuts the door behind her.

“Petals!  What are you doing here?  At the school?”

“Ah!  Well, your Mom told me where I could find you,” he has his hands in his pockets and he’s rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

OK, thinks Reyna, “But I thought you hated schools.”

“I still do.”

How odd of him to be here, then.  To his credit, Petals does come off as nervous, looking from side to side often, and pulling at the lobe of his ear. 

“You didn’t go to the Himalayas,” Reyna observes.

“No,”Petals looks at his feet, “not yet.”

Reyna tugs at her sleeve.  The classroom halls are lit bright as daylight, but there is complete silence here.  All the children are safe in their classrooms, with their teachers.  It’s strange to be here while classes are in session, as if Reyna is invading upon secret, mythical territory.  A place that isn’t real; a place between places.

“Well, is there a reason you came?  Because I must get back to-”

“There is!”  Petals cuts her off.

Reyna waits.  She’s still wounded with her conversation with him from before.  It’s even worse that he caught her doing one of the things he hates so much- teaching.  True, Reyna isn’t working in any sort of professional capacity- she’s just the guest reader for today.  But this activity is close to what she wants to do with her life.  Wanted to do.  She now realizes how wrong she was.  

The Prince clears his throat, though, “I went a ways away.  Back to the Zoo you and your Mom took me to.  I was going to go further, but the Rose told me something.”

“Yes?”  She looks up from under her brows, as if they can shield her.

“She told me- reminded me that- I have a very bad habit.”

Reyna chooses not to prompt him.  If he wants to speak, he should just speak.

“Um, um, right,” he coughs, “my bad habit is, running away from people.  When I am upset by them I-” he sighs, “abandon them.  Try to, forget them.”

Reyna lifts her head slightly.  Petals is looking at the carpet again.  It’s kind of purply, but mostly brown.  

“I do it a lot.”

“Oh,” is all that Reyna says.

“It would be better,” he says, haltingly, “probably, to speak with them.  To, try to, repair things.”

“Probably.”

He looks into Reyna’s eyes.  His eyes are scared, and it seems like they don’t want to linger, but they are held trapped by Petals.

“I’m sorry.  I’m sorry that I yelled at you in your home.”

Reyna caresses her knuckles, “Petals, it’s OK.  I forgot that you didn’t like teachers much.  I should have been more thoughtful about your experiences.”

“My experiences have no bearing on your choices though.  They’re mine, and they’re past.”  

Reyna appreciates that.  He’s not saying he supports her dream.  He’s just telling her his response to it was out of line.

It’s surprisingly mature of him.

“How long were you waiting?  Watching the class?”

“Oh, a while.  I saw you reading a book to the children.”

“Oh.”

“They seemed to enjoy it.”

“I think they did, too.  I’m helping to teach them, you know," she chances.

“Teaching?  Really?”

“Yes.  We’re in a creative exercise right now.”

“Creative.  Oh,” Petals stares at the classroom door, as if he can still watch the children through it.

That seems like enough on this subject, so she coughs, “Thank you, Petals.  I’m going back to teach.  I’m glad that the Rose convinced you to come back, and not forget me.  No one likes to be forgotten.”

“That’s true,” Petals draws up his shoulders, uncomfortable.  

“And, I won’t forget you,” she works his hand out of his pocket, and embraces his fingers, “I promise you that.  No matter how old I get.”

“Really?  But you can’t control it, can you?”

“Well,” she shrugs, “you’re kind of unforgettable.  You’re very, very odd.  Do you know that?”

“I’m been told,” he grins now, “once, or twice, or more.”

***

He has chosen to stay at the school, specifically, on the playground.  His school didn’t have a playground.  His school didn’t give him a chance to climb and swing and slide around.  His school  anything that could inspire joy of any sort.  

He swings for a while, until he spots Reyna emerging from one of the back doors, and then he jumps of the swing at full arc, landing on his feet in front of her.  He presents her with a manic grin, and she laughs.  

They walk through town.  Reyna talks about how she never went to this school, the far-side-of-town school, and wonders out loud what it would have been like to walk to walk home this way every day.  Petals wonders what it’s like to have fond memories of education.  Reyna seems to have some.

They pass a park, and and over a river.  They are swept along, sometimes, with a stream of school children walking the same way they are.  Many of them recognize Reyna when they pass, and greet her, calling her Miss Ness.  

They’re walking downtown, and are about to pass in front of a small cafe, when Reyna becomes suddenly agitated, gasps, and stops dead.

Petals asks, “What’s the matter?”  

“Petals, we have to take a detour,” she grabs his wrist.

“Why?”  Petals notices that Reyna’s attention is on a girl up ahead.  She has just recently stepped out of the business behind her, and now she’s making her way to a sidewalk table with with a cup of coffee.  She’s taller than Reyna, with a dark, frizzy hair around her head like a mist, and warm, dark eyes.  

“Is she your enemy?”  Petals asks in a hushed tone.

“Enemy?  No way.  She doesn’t know I exist.”

“Oh.”

“And I should like to keep it that way,” she says, tugging on her friend’s arm.

“But why?  What would she do if she knew you existed?”  Petals stays planted, like a tree or a rose.

“I don’t know.   _I don’t know!_  Come on.”

Petals doesn’t move, though.  It seems to him that there’s no reason to change their course, “Why do you fear her?”

Reyna groans, “Isn’t it obvious?”

It’s not obvious, though, or at least not to Petals.  Is it a Grown Up-obvious thing or Child-obvious thing?  He’s not quite either, so he’s lost.

“She’s perfect,” Reyna leans her head on Petals’ shoulder, “she's radiates.  And, well, look at me.”

Petals looks at her, though she’s so close he’s looking at the top of her head.

She turns her face up at him, “I mean, look at me.  I’m not smart enough to talk to her.  I’ll make a fool of myself.”

Petals screws up his mouth.

“What?”

“You were telling me just today that you were _too smart_ to do what you really wanted to do.  But now, you’re _not smart enough_ to do what you want to do?”

“Not smart like that.  I don’t mean smart like a nerd!”  She sighs, “Smart like, funny.  And interesting.  And fun to talk to.  And it’s not like I want to talk to her!  I’m scared to death to talk to her!”

“But, you like her!”

“Yes but-”

“I’ve just realized something,” Petals suddenly blurts.

Reyna stands at attention, “And what’s that?”

“Teenagers are very, very odd.”

“Yeah.  I guess we are,” she laughs, then anxiously looks over to the girl at the table.  She’s sitting now, looking around boredly, but not in the direction of the two teenagers.  

“Listen, Reyna,” he puts his hands on her shoulders, “it’s one thing for me to think that I shouldn’t talk to people because the person I am, generally.  But you found the Planet of the Grown Ups all on your own.  You stood up to the Businessman.  You freed the stars!”

“That was such a long time ago, though!”

“But it was still you!  You were brave.  The bravest girl in the universe.  You were so brave, you taught me to be brave again!  How can you be afraid of a single girl from Earth?”

Reyna’s mouth becomes a hard, straight line, and her eyes narrow, but after a second she says, “I’m so mad.  I can’t argue with that.”

Petals takes his hands off her shoulders.

“OK,” she says, “OK, I’ll go talk to her.”  She lets out a panicked breath, “What am I doing?  Petals, you better arrange some flowers for my funeral.  My favorite is lavender.”

While Petals is trying to figure out whether she’s serious about that request, she walks to the table.  The girl looks up as she approaches, “Hi!”

“Hi!  Uh, nice, uh, weather, huh?” Reyna says.

The weather.  Why do Grown Ups(and almost grown-ups) always talk about the weather?

“Oh.  Um, yeah, I guess.  No rain or anything.  Hey!  Aren’t you that girl?”

“Huh?  What?  What girl?”  Reyna looks slightly panicked.

“That girl.  The really smart one, who used to be two grades under me.  The mathlete.”

“Oh.  Oh yeah, yeah, true.  I mean, I’m _still_ two grades under you.  But I guess that doesn’t count since you’re not in school,” she trails off.

The girl laughs, “Here, wanna sit with me?”

“Oh!  I couldn’t, no-” Reyna puts up her hands, “I couldn’t impose, I mean.”

“You’re not imposing.  I’m inviting you.  If you wanna.  You don’t have you,” she extends a hand, and tells Reyna her name.

“ _I know_ ,” Reyna says.

“Huh?”

“I mean, my name is Reyna,” she sits at the table with the girl.  

“Reyna?  That’s a pretty name.”

Petals has been watching the whole time, smiling to himself.  Reyna told him it makes her happy to see him happy.  Well, Petals feels the same way about her.  How good that she gets to make a friend.

He walks on past the table, unnoticed by either girl.


	7. Chapter 7

By the time she gets home, Petals is wearing the rented tux and looking a little green around the neck. He keeps pulling at his tie collar. Reyna’s mother keeps telling her how handsome the boy looks. To Reyna, it’s like if you tried to force a majestic deer into a tutu. These kind of clothes simply do not suit him.

There is much urge to hurry, though, and it isn’t as if Reyna can talk her mother out of making Petals dress up. Reyna only tells him a ‘thank you’ as she runs into the house.

On the car radio, a report about the zoo. It’s been closed to the public after a bizarre terrorist attack the day before. It actually chills Reyna a little to think that she was there when it happened, but there’s no one to talk to. Her mother is on the phone with work, and Petals looks like he’s going to throw up. _“Despite security measures, zoo officials report that one of the animals have been stolen this afternoon. The city police are doubling it’s security on the zoo while-”_

“Honey, would you turn that down?” Her mother says distractedly, and for the rest of the drive only the second half of her conversation can be heard.

Reyna does a double check of her makeup in the mirror, and wonders what the Radiant Girl would say if she saw Reyna made up like this. Would she say it was pretty, and Reyna should wear her hair up like this more often? Or would she say that she looked fine but not really like herself? Reyna hopes it would be the second one.

The ceremony is held in the gymnasium at her school, only mats have been placed to hide the court markings, and there are tables set up with candles on them. It begins with a dinner of fish on greens, and a lot of milling around and hobnobbing. Reyna finds it easy to move about the room, the memory of her lunch with the Radiant Girl fresh on her mind makes her feel like she’s floating about the room.

Petals has not touched his food when she returns, or even left his seat. In fact he’s in the same position: looking down into his food with an ever greener tone to his skin. She whispers his name, but he doesn’t seem to hear. A waiter comes and takes his full plate. Reyna’s mother returns to the table.

The ceremony begins. Announcements are made. Speeches are spoke. At one point Reyna’s name is called and she goes to the erected platform at the front of the room. When she returns, Petals is gone.

***

They find the tux all ironed and cleaned and back on it’s hanger in the hall when they get home. It looks like it’s never been touched. Reyna’s mother finds the iron where she usually keeps it over the refrigerator, but with the cord a different way. She says something about the security deposit, then frowns, “How did he get in the house? The door was locked,” then “I’m gonna go check the windows.”

Reyna goes to her own room first, then to the guest room, though she doesn’t expect to find Petals in that guestroom he admits to hate, anyway. Then she takes the ladder to the roof. There he is, on the corner, wrapped in the sleeping bag, watching the stars. He notices her come up and smiles.

She sits next to him, realizing again that she’s not properly dressed. Petals seems to realize this and throws half of the blanket over her shoulders. Reyna mouths a ‘thank you’. The boy’s petals are dried and withered and all curled on his head. Oh, the rose.

“Did you leave because the Rose was leaving?” Reyna asks.

Petals nods, “I’m sorry, Reyna, I found it difficult.”

She smiles, “It’s OK. It was nice for my mom to invite you but I knew you didn’t want to come.”

There is quiet between them. It’s too early for crickets- a shame; Reyna loves those. She wonders if Petals likes the sounds of crickets. Has he ever heard them?

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he says.

Her heart sinks. Of course, she knows he must leave. But she’ll miss him. “Earth?”

“No. Not Earth; not yet. There’s more I want to see. The Himalayas and The Amazon, both, though I don’t know in what order yet. No, I’m leaving your country. I’m traveling to Virginia next.”

“Virginia? In America? But what’s in Virginia?”

“My friend’s home.”

“Your friend?” Reyna flushes, “You have other friends on Earth, other than The Aviator and me?”

“Of course! You have friends other than me, don’t you?”

Well, when he puts it that way, her question sounds silly.

“I want a backpack,” he says suddenly.

***

_RAP-RAP-RAP-RAP!_

Reyna groans and turns over in bed.

_RAP-RAP-RAP-RAP!_

She pops out of bed, finally startled. What is making that noise? Nothing moving inside her room but for her.

_RAP-RAP-RAP-RAP!_

The window. Reyna gasps, and runs to it, propping it open.

“Petals? What are doing doing here? Where’d you get this ladder?”

“It belonged our mutual friend,” he says. He’s standing on the ladder, grinning at her. His petals are red and full. He’s back in his green and yellow hoodie. The backpack she gave him is resting on his shoulders. Reyna still wonders whether it’s alright for a prince to have old, worn out backpack with pink and blue stars all over it, but Petals seems happy with it.

Reyna peeks out past him, and notices the paint splatters on the wooden ladder. Yes- definitely The Aviator’s. How many times did Reyna use this when patching up his roof? It’s not extended to it’s full height- hardly that, really.

“I’m leaving now,” Petals says, “will you wish me safe-travels?”

Reyna climbs down the ladder still in her pajamas. The sun is just peeking over the horizon and there are a few hours before the girl has to actually be ‘awake’. She’s an early riser anyway, so she doesn’t mind this.

Petals leads her into The Aviator’s yard, where the garden had one been. Something metallic pangs her heart and she feels guilty for not tending to the garden all these years, but for taking a weedwacker to it every few weeks in the summer.

A movement at the edge of the space. At first Reyna thinks the creature’s a cat, but it’s taller and longer and has a more pointed snout. It darts behind a watering can that’s rooted to the earth with weeds.

“It’s alright,” Petals approaches the North American gray fox, “this is the friend I told you about- Reyna.”

Reyna blinks, then takes a breath, “Petals! Is- is that fox from the zoo?”

Petals shakes his head, “He’s not from the zoo. He’s from Virginia.”

The Prince’s friend from Virginia. Oh. Reyna gets it, now.

“So you’re the one who stole the fox. Were you behind the terrorist attack, too, then?”

“‘Terrorist?’”

Reyna shakes her head, “It was on the radio yesterday, Petals, when we were both in the car. Though- they aren’t releasing details. All I know is, something very strange happened at the zoo yesterday, just as we were leaving.”

Petals looks shocked, bites his lip, and puts his hands in his pockets, _“I had to do it. I simply had to...you must understand.”_

This worries Reyna more, so she prods them into telling her what they’re talking about. The story comes out, and Reyna laughs.

“Rose, you attacked a gift shop?”

_“It was a hateful bully! One of those dread trees.”_

“A gift shop,” Reyna nods, then chuckle again. She can’t stay angry at the flower. She wan’t even in the first place- mostly frightened, really.

“You two should probably go. You’re kind of wanted criminals, now,” she can resist it no more, and hugs the Prince and his Rose. The gray fox stares them down from behind the watering can. “I’ll miss you,” Reyna promises.

“And I you,” Petals says, “but we’ll make sure to remember you. Oh! Would you like to come?”

Reyna pulls away. Petals clearly just came up with the idea, and the excitement of it dances before his face like fireflies. She purses her lips, “To Virginia?”

“There,” Petals says with a nod, “and then the Himalayas or the Amazon. One of the two. And eventually, to some other place.”

“You mean, not on Earth?”

Petals nods. He likes this idea, clearly.

“Petals, I can’t.”

His face falls.

“My mom is here. My school is here. My future is here. Petals, you know what happened to The Aviator. He can never go back to Earth. I’m- I’m not ready to leave Earth forever.”

Petals nods, staring at Reyna’s slipper feet, but narrows his eyes, “Haven’t you left your planet and returned before?”

“Well,” she wrings her hands, “yes. Yes, I guess I did. I mean, I definitely did,” she puts her hands on the fence, and scrapes off some chipped paint, “but it was different back then. I was a child. I could bend the rules as they fit me,” she looks up at the sky. A mongoose shaped cloud is floating past. She has no hard evidence, no data or numbers, and yet is something she knows deep in her heart. Something she can just, feel, “I’m too old to break the rules, now. I’m a creature of consequence.”

Petals looks very sad indeed, but he looks to the side as if listening to something, and he nods. The Rose has said something secret to him.

“We may cross paths again. The universe is large and there are so many crossroads in it.”

“There are, aren’t they?”

Petals nods, and whistles. It’s a loud, proud sound that echos all around the neighborhood.

“When I see you again, I hope you will have been teaching children many interesting things.”

Reyna put her hand on her heart, “Petals, do you mean that?”

Petals grins, “Yes! You’ll make a wonderful grown up, and a wonderful teacher too. But may I ask you a favor?”

Reyna puts her hands to her side, “What is it? I’m all ears.”

The Prince’s face screws up as he seems confused by the statement, but he says, “Um, right! Reyna, please teach them about foxes, and stars, and airplanes, and all the essential things in the universe.”

“Oh, yes, of course! I will teach my students about those,” Reyna nods, excited, “and about roses, too.”

“Yes! _Especially_ about roses!”

“I will! I promise.”

They hug again. There is a noise like a thunderclap- or many small thunderclaps all happening at once. The teenagers are surrounded by birds. Birds on the roof of The Aviator’s home, birds in the trees, birds on the fence. Birds with shiny black and blue and purple feathers. The spacegulls.

Petals runs to the ladder and extends a bit further. Reyna uses it to climb to the roof, moving gently as to not wake her Mother. When Petals finally climbs the ladder, the fox is in his backpack, with only his ears poking out.

Petals puts a hand up in the air and the birds leave their temporary perches. They swirl around the boy, the Rose, the girl and the fox. Reyna speaks above the sound of the wind.

“You know, there are anacondas in the Amazon.”

“Oh!” Petals says.

“Anacondas were The Aviator’s favorite animal.”

“Oh!” And Petals smiles, “I think I’ve just made up my mind!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, so, finally finishing this.  
> Apologies for not finishing it sooner. It was a bad combination of getting a stroke of depression but also a lot of family emergencies and work, and by the time I crawled out of it all, I didn't want to think about The Prince anymore.  
> But I felt bad leaving this unfinished, especially since it only needed on chapter to tie it up. So, here you are.  
> I really did enjoy writing this, and I thank anyone who's read this through. I know it's a weird AU, but I like the idea of The Prince not being completely free of his depression and anxiety, but also being able to handle it a little better. If you enjoyed, let me know! Thanks, and have a lovely 2017!


End file.
